The New Year has opened with a bang for Indian automakers with robust sales growth figures for December. Maruti Suzuki closed the year with 36 per cent growth, selling 71,000 units against 52,029 units in December 2008 with year-end discounts and other goodies thrown in to lure customers as did other carmakers.

The Maruti small car portfolio - Alto, Wagon-R, Zen, Swift, Ritz and A-Star - saw sales soar 42 per cent in the month to 52,236 units against 36,831 units. Sales for April-December 2009 were up 22 per cent at 625,408 units against 510,659 units in the comparable period of the previous year.

Hyundai, Maruti's close competitor, also saw a healthy 43 per cent jump in December sales at 22,252 units as against 15,602 units in the same month in 2008.

According to Hyundai India's marketing and sales director Arvind Saxena, improvement in the overall economic scenario had stabilised the automotive market and the government needed to be thanked for its timely intervention last year. He added that the stimulus package did help the automotive industry and the industry hoped the government would continue with this at least for some more time.

Hyundai's cumulative December car sales grew 23 per cent to 47,217 units.

The company's successful i10, i20 models clocked 22,252 units in domestic sales, rising 43 per cent year-on-year.